1200-600 BCE - Early Iron Age (Israelite Period) Under the leadership of the Judges and later the Kings, the Israelite Kingdom reaches its zenith. King David (1000 BCE) wages war with the Philistines, while his son, King Solomon, builds the Temple in Jerusalem. After the death of Solomon the kingdom breaks into two, and the period of independence finally ends when the Israelites are defeated in battle by the Babylonians and taken into captivity around 587 BCE. Nebuchadnezzar lays seige to Jerusalem, and destroys the Temple. About the picture: One of the most dramatic was attested by the humblest of the artifact groupings - the pottery. Close to half the 263 pottery vessels were clearly recognizable from similar pottery found in the blackened destruction levels at Lachish and in the City of David as belonging to the period preceding the Babylonian conquest of those two sites in 586. Most of the others dated from the immediate post conquest period almost to the return of Nehemiah in 444 BCE to rebuild the city walls. 8000-4000 BCE 3000-1200 BCE 1700 1200-600 BCE 587-332 BCE 520 BCE 332-63 BCE 166 BCE 63-324 CE 6-3 BCE 66 CE 68 CE 132-135 CE 135-324 CE 324-638 CE 614 CE 638-1099 CE 1099-1291 CE 1291-1917 CE 1492 1517 1886 1918-1948 1948 1950-67 1968-1988 1974 1977 1982 1993 2000